Once again, for the purposes of I find it absolutely hilarious and see no reason not to do so, Loki is included as a pseudo-Avenger. Ish.

Our scene opens in the Southern California high desert, somewhere off of I-10. Our intrepid heroes are delicately (or not so delicately) snoring away in Tony Stark’s hideously expensive sports car, oblivious of the outside world. Suddenly, the voice of Jarvis can be heard.

Jarvis, with his usual British calm: “Sir, you have an urgent phone call from Ms. Potts. She says you have not answered her calls all night, and has asked that I take over the Bluetooth of your car. Shall I put her through?”

Stark wakes up, stretches, starts coming back to the world of the conscious, and replies.

Stark: “Sure, put her through. Hi, sweetie, sorry I didn’t answer your calls, we must have been pretty blitzed last night. Did you miss me?”

Loki has heard the commotion, and is instantly awake. No groggy, slightly hungover state for him, no sir, he is alert. He is listening intently to the conversation.

Pepper, in a tone of voice that can only be described as frosty: “I take it you haven’t seen the news this morning.”

Now Tony is genuinely confused, but as usual, plays it off. After all, he’s used to having his face splashed across the newspapers, 24-hour news coverage, and being talked about on all the morning shows.

Stark: “Well, no, because I was kind of asleep in my car, out here in the desert. Why am I in the desert anyway? Hey, Reindeer Games, how did we end up here? Jarvis, where exactly is here? I need answers, people?”

Loki shrugs, as some slightly uncomfortable memories begin to come back to him, unwilling to say anything, but pretty sure that he’s about to hear an accounting of what happened last night from Pepper Potts. Jarvis informs Tony that they are currently five miles outside of Cabazon, California, a town notable for not much of anything. There’s a casino, an outlet mall, and a pair of concrete dinosaurs that have made appearances in a music video and movies.

Now Tony looks really confused.

Stark: “What in the name of all that is unholy are we doing outside Cabazon? There’s literally nothing here. I could understand if we were right outside Palm Springs. But Cabazon? What, were we going shopping?”

Pepper’s tone drops a few degrees.

Pepper: “Turn on the news. Now.”

Tony pulls up a video display that covers the windshield with the KTLA morning news. The anchors are engaging in the usual banter, pretending to be wittier than they actually are. Loki is beginning to get highly annoyed, and then, the story begins.

News Anchor: “And late last night, apparently billionaire playboy Tony Stark and former supervillain Loki were spotted leaving a Los Angeles gala, only to be seen hours later in Cabazon. Video coverage shows what appears to be a rather intoxicated Tony Stark laughingly encouraging Loki as he destroys the historical dinosaurs with his staff. Police consider the two to be drunk, disorderly, armed, and dangerous. If you see them, call 911, but do not approach them.”

Tony and Loki exchange a glance, and Tony just stares. Finally, Loki speaks.

Loki: “I may remember drinking with you, and vaguely remember being threatened by large lizard folk.”

Tony now remembers the events of last night clearly.

Stark: “No. No, dude. You were screaming about protecting us all from the giant lizards who were clearly out to kill us, and the next thing I knew, there were chunks of Cabazon dinosaur everywhere. But, we were too drunk to flee. Oh God. This is so bad. So very, very bad. You already have an image problem, what with using the Glow Stick of Destiny to enslave people and trying to destroy New York. We were working on that. And then, when you got drunk with me, you decided that destroying a California icon was a great idea. Pepper, make a donation to cover the cost of replacing the dinosaurs and then some. I’ll talk to you later when I figure out where we’re going. Oh, and get my lawyer to smooth things over and get the charges dropped. You know, blah blah Avengers, blah blah brother of Thor, make it all sound good.”

Loki: “Apparently, this was a horrible idea, and now we need a place to hide. Somewhere that we can be inconspicuous. Somewhere that we won’t be noticed. I know little of your planet, but it seems that if we stay in smaller towns, surely we will be found faster.”

Stark: “You’re right. A place to hide, preferably in a big city, somewhere we won’t be noticed. Somewhere we can be inconspicuous. Not L.A., that’s the first place they’ll be looking. Not New York, it’ll take too long to get there. Palm Springs is not really my style. Wait….Las Vegas.”

Loki raises an eyebrow at Tony, having no clue what he’s banging on about.

Loki: “Las Vegas?”

Stark: “Yeah! Vegas! You know, showgirls? Casinos? In Vegas, you can have a hundred Elvis impersonators walk down the street, and nobody bats an eye. There’s people who impersonate me and you in Vegas. You can get anything and do anything at any time in Vegas. On second thought, ahhh, what the hell. So, Vegas?”

Loki: “Your Las Vegas sounds like a place of magic and mystery. Las Vegas it is.”

Dr. Bruce Banner is attempting to get Loki to calm down, and tries to remind Thor that we do not fling coffee cups to the floor on Earth, especially not in the Avengers compound, and that we get up and get our own coffee, and is getting increasingly frustrated with both parties. He is beginning to get a little green around the edges when in walks Tony Stark, just in time to make everything worse.

Stark, yelling: “What in the HELL is going on in here? Loki, that’s the sixth toaster this WEEK that you have destroyed! No more toast for you! Thor, how many times do I have to tell you that down here, you get your own damn coffee, and you DON’T FLING YOUR COFFEE MUG TO THE FLOOR? THAT ONE WAS THE ONE WITH THE PICTURE OF THE CAT! THAT WAS MY FAVORITE!”

The Asgard brothers are now both on their feet, and squaring off with Stark, who puts his hand up and is instantly in his Iron Man armor. Now things are really bad, and what was once one very grumpy demi-god exploding a toaster, and a sunny natured demi-god flinging a coffee cup to the floor has now devolved into a full-blown fight, and everyone has forgotten about the mild-mannered physicist sitting in the corner who had been trying to resolve things….until he transforms into the Hulk.

Now all four of them are fighting, and while the compound can withstand it, things are getting broken, and it’s ugly. Cabinet doors are ripped off their hinges, chairs are broken, the table is smashed to smithereens, and at one point, the refrigerator is thrown across the room. Finally, the fight is over, and all four are spent, breathing heavily, glaring at each other, and contemplating the mess.

In the doorway, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Cap are standing there, staring at the chaos in front of them. Cap shakes his head, says nothing, grabs his jacket and heads for a nearby diner. Natasha and Clint exchange a glance.